


Stay

by Lythlyra



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-28
Updated: 2012-02-28
Packaged: 2017-10-31 21:11:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/348404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lythlyra/pseuds/Lythlyra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The lanterns are out. There's a knock at the door. (Nathaniel/Anders slash)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Iapetus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iapetus/gifts).



> Iapetusneume prompted this when I was taking milestone requests on Tumblr.
> 
> "Nathaniel/Anders - Nate visits Anders' clinic some time after he gets back to Kirkwall when his mission with the Wardens is over."

The lanterns are out.

There's a knock at the door.

It can be anyone, really, but Anders crosses off a few people; templars, gangs, and prowlers don't typically _knock_.

He picks up his staff anyway, his steps deliberate and quiet, and splays his fingers over the scarred, wooden door, listening. Whoever waits on the other side is pointedly quiet, waiting on him in turn.

"Who is it?"

There is a pause, but the voice -- it isn't one he's quick to forget. "Open up, Anders."

And he does, with no further hesitation, stepping aside and letting Nathaniel Howe inside the clinic, bolting the door behind him.

It isn't the first time they see each other over the course of the last two weeks, but it's the first time that there isn't the threat of Darkspawn and worse. It's not awkward, but it's _something_.

Something Anders can never place.

"Didn't know you'd changed your name," Anders quips, hoping to sever whatever _that feeling_ is, and it doesn't quite work. "I'm touched."

Nathaniel ignores the terrible, if strained, joke, too busy looking around, taking in old cots and older shelves and haphazardly gathered and arranged supplies. Anders doesn't have proper chairs to offer him, but he gestures to an arrangement of crates. It's there that they sit.

"I'm not sure when there will be another opportunity to speak," Nathaniel says, watching Anders light candles with quick sparks of magic. It offers them enough light for this. "But I wanted to thank you."

Anders thinks that he should be thanking Hawke, but pointing that out will just have him insisting anyway. When Anders settles back down, he shrugs. "It's just this thing I do -- this thing I thought I was done doing, but somehow, I keep getting sucked back in to do some more, and there you were. Small world."

Nathaniel gives him one of those looks, the one Anders can never quite read, and he just smiles back -- tired, rougher around the edges, but still there.

What the rogue finally says isn't what he expects.

"You were serious about this."

The memories are hazy now, less focused, disjointed, but he recalls that night that he slips away from the Keep -- that Nathaniel finds him and promises to keep his silence after Anders explains as best that he can, in what little time he has -- and begins the long journey here.

He's too late to help Karl, but he might not be powerless to help mages as a whole.

"I thought..." Nathaniel trails off, shaking his head. "I don't know what I thought."

At least it's an honest answer. It's not as if anyone could know the way Anders -- the way Justice -- does what this city is like, what it would continue to be like. Anders remembers stories of Nathaniel squiring here, but that's a nobleman's life -- not a mage's.

"Well, I thought you'd have told the Wardens where I was by now," Anders begins, his smile easier, "especially once they broke out their secret weapon."

"Secret weapon?" That familiar, skeptical eyebrow raise is a welcome sight.

"Oghren."

He doesn't miss the way Nathaniel's lips inch into a smirk. "I never had to speak about it. Stroud knew."

That explains everything. "And here I was, thinking I was some sort of sneak-mage."

"If he had doubts, you confirmed it when Carver Hawke was recruited."

It's unsettling to think the Wardens just leave him to his own devices simply because they can, and though he wonders why that is, he's not ungrateful for it.

"You know how it goes. It's all fun and games until someone gets Blight sickness."

"That's the way of it, yes."

The space of heartbeat in which there's nothing save for silence, save for the creak of wood and the distant call of voices somewhere outside the door, in the tunnels, is more telling than anything they say to each other with words. It's the careful glance, the scrutiny, the pucker of concern that furrows lines into Nathaniel's brow.

Anders sees the questions that he doesn't want to hear asked.

Maybe Nathaniel doesn't want to ask them.

"It's late. I've already taken up much of your time."

And it's better if he goes, just like it's better that Anders is here and not in Amaranthine, but his mouth has this way of opening even when more than just his own conscience is warning him to let it go.

"You could stay for the night. Darktown isn't exactly the place for a moonlit stroll."

It hides the hope that he shouldn't have but not the thrill when Nathaniel accepts it.


End file.
